


The Things That Stop You Dreaming

by eirabach



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Captain Swan Storybook, Episode: s03e18 Bleeding Through, F/M, Mild Angst, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 08:16:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8049025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eirabach/pseuds/eirabach
Summary: A missing scene from 3x18 Bleeding Through. This is a communication failure, alright.





	The Things That Stop You Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the incredible Captain Swan Storybook created by whimsicallyenchantedrose and flslp87 on tumblr. Posted here for posterity.
> 
> Title from the song of the same name by Passenger.
> 
> Thanks to ripplestitchskein for the encouragement on this one!

 

All his life he'd been a disaster.

He'd been a whirlwind fuelled by hate, by revenge, by drink, brief sparking moments of light and joy snuffed out almost as soon as they bloomed to life by virtue of the one fact that never changed. Villains don't get happy endings, Regina had said, and Killian Jones must be a hell of a villain.

In his youth he'd wondered if he might be cursed. If perhaps his parents had sensed from the off that there was something wrong with him, something that attracted the darkness to him even then. He can still recall the way he would lie in bed at night, fingers digging into the straw mattress as the darkness would press in on him, laying heavy and thick on his chest while he struggled until someone struck a match and set him momentarily free. He never had been able to free himself.

They’d all left in the end, those who'd struck the match of joy and happiness within him, and they'd taken the light with them. The darkness had won, and he'd worn his curse like a blessing and called it vengeance.

Until her. Until she’d stormed into his life, not bearing a light but being it, bright and beautiful and good.

And then he'd sworn on her name, taken her name, her light, the love he'd never thought he could feel again, and handed it over to the bloody witch on a platter. He may as well have snuffed her out himself.

He tosses a green apple in the air (one of Zelena’s little gifts, Regina had told him with a sneer) and wonders if he drives his hook into it the point will appear, blood red, out of the witches pale throat.

Emma walks in like a beacon, shirt the colour of the deepest sea, and looks at him like he matters.

“Where's your sense of humour?” she asks.

The universe laughs.

\--

All her life she’d had an itch under her skin. It had crawled through her veins, flaring up like wildfire whenever she spotted a lie, her superpower fizzing in the tips of her fingers and the twitch of her nose.

It never bothered her much, it’s hard to be irritated by something as natural as breathing, but then she’d opened her door to Henry, to Storybrooke, to magic, and the itch became a burn. Lightning in her blood no longer a superpower, but a curse.

He makes it worse. In Neverland the lightning becomes fire, the orphan becomes a saviour, and it terrifies her in ways she can barely articulate. Truth and lies and fact and fiction screwed up and set alight by a fire she can’t control.

( _I wished you were dead._

_A one time thing_.)

Her magic burns regardless, and she hates it.

When she leaves, magic, and family, and hope, and him, all disappear in her rear-view mirror, and the itch along with them. She doesn’t remember to miss any of it.

But now she’s back, a tickle crawling beneath her skin, and he won’t even meet her eyes.

At first she puts it down to his own issues. He’s not a man used to compliments, after all, and maybe working for the good guys is making him twitchy. He’d been fine when she’d left Henry with him. His usual obnoxious self in fact, leading with his hips into her personal space and making her breath catch, her magic sparking so fiercely that when he smirks at her she’s sure it’s because he can see it.

Of course he can see it, she’s an open book, after all, but right now she can’t figure him out at all.

“Why’d you knock the table?”

He’s walking three feet from her, his hands stuffed in his pockets as if she’s carrying some infectious disease. If it stings, she’s not about to let it show.

“Crossed my legs, as I said.”

Emma raises an eyebrow, not that he can see as he stares resolutely at the toes of his boots.

“Doesn’t seem like you.”

“Clearly you don’t know me as well as you’d like to think, Swan.”

She balks at that and he cringes, his hand coming up to rub at his beard.

“Sorry, that was uncalled for.”

“It’s been a hell of a few days,” she tries to keep her voice light even as her heart seems to be growing heavier, “maybe we just need a drink.” She bites her lip, eyes the way he’s always turned half away from her, “Granny’s?”

His eyes flick to hers then, shadowed blue that seem to look right through her before he directs them to the starlit sky. “Alas, I have some reading to catch up on.”

_Lie_ , screams her magic.

“And you can’t read and drink at the same time?” she says. “The great Captain Hook can’t multi-task?”

He sighs, offering her a half smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I suppose I could keep you company for a little while, if you insist.”

“There is a wicked witch on the loose after all,” Emma smiles back, “can’t have you wandering off and getting into trouble.”

She expects some quip, some jibe about how she can be his bodyguard any time she likes, but all she gets is a shrug of the shoulders as he traipses after her towards the diner.

It’s empty except for them and one of Granny’s most cheerless waitresses who makes Emma’s usual with a begrudging sneer. Killian disappears upstairs as soon as the waitresses heads into the back and Emma is left to sit at the counter, her knee jiggling nervously and invisible spiders crawling over her skin.

\--

He's been in some brigs in his time all right, very nearly his fair share in fact, but this, this is surely the worst torture he's ever had to endure.

He hadn't meant to kick the table, per say. But he'd seen the look of terror on Emma's mother’s face and it had spoken to the part of him afraid to meet the queen’s eyes in case she could see the lingering echo of her sister’s magic around his lips. So she's not wrong with her accusations. Men like him don't become, well, men like him through oafish clumsiness, no, he's always been a man of tactics, of strategy.

A fine job he's doing of that. Captured, cursed, and reduced to an awkward bumbling lad by the touch of her hand to his ruined wrist. The air around her crackles and sparks, the danger clear and present, and gods help him he wants to run for his life (her life).

“Granny's?” She asks for the second time in two days. For a moment he wonders what it might be to be a worthy man. Imagines her and him, cocoa and rum and greasy plates on shiny tablecloths. He'd like to be the man worthy of the smile that's just touching the edges of her lips, a man good enough to let her go. Alas, he's only a pirate, and he's not strong enough to refuse her again.

He'd made up some bilge about reading, so he leaves her glaring down the waitress, heading up to his rented room for one of the few books he managed to salvage from the Jolly. Perhaps there’s something in here about curse breaking. Or perhaps it’s time that he accepted that the curse isn’t just on his lips, but on him, and this stilted nighttime trip to a third class dining establishment is the best he deserves. (She deserves better.)

A better man would go now, depart, ship or no ship, and leave her in peace. But there’s no peace in Storybrooke, and gods help him but he can’t leave her. He heads back down to the diner, his head bowed like a man voluntarily attending his own hanging.

She smiles at him brightly as he shuffles wearily onto the narrow bench seat of the booth, one of her signature frivolous beverages sitting on the counter before her. He tries to smile back, but then she mentions her magic and any warmth it may have had fades into cold dread.

\--

Something’s wrong, cries her magic the longer he’s away. It seems to coalesce in her shoulderblades, a frantic itch that she stands no hope of scratching, and it’s as if her magic itself wants to burst free from her skin and find him.

I don’t care, says her brain, even as the rhythmic jigging of her foot almost causes her to upset her hot chocolate down herself. Then his footsteps land, solid and heavy and oddly comforting, at the bottom of the staircase, and her traitorous heart whispers, Yes you do.

He slides into a booth, the book he must have gone to fetch open in front of him, and spares her the smallest of smiles.

“So I’ve been practicing my magic,” she says for lack of anything better. His thumb rubs along his fingers - a little nervous tick she’s noticed - and he grunts out something non-committal. Emma frowns. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

“I’m sure we’ll all be apoplectic with joy when you defeat the witch, Swan. Me more than most I’d wager.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He looks at her, quirks his eyebrow in what he must think is his normal cocky way (it is not normal in the least). “A man has his secrets, which as I recall you declared none of your business.”

“Yeah,” she runs her finger through the cream on her drink, watches the way his eyes can’t help but follow her movements as she licks it off, “but that was before you starting acting so...”

Both eyebrows go up then. “So?”

“Weird,” she nods decisively, “you know a girl might start thinking you’ve lost interest.”

He laughs then, a sharp bark that makes her jump it’s so unexpected. “Ah, so that’s it! I can assure you Swan, no matter what you might be, uninteresting is certainly not it.”

She balks at that. “So what am I, then? Just something to entertain you when you’re bored?”

“Well wouldn’t that just be beautifully mutual?” he spits, and then his eyes go wide, the tips of his ears turning pink, “Emma, Emma I didn’t mean…”

“No,” she takes a deep breath, “no, you did. And you’re right. I shouldn’t have said it in the first place.”

He shakes his head. “You shouldn’t care what a man like me thinks of you, Swan. You’re a hero, a saviour, you have magic. What am I.”

He says it casually, as if his own utter unimportance is a given - a rule of the universe. The tide will turn, the sun will rise, Killian Jones doesn’t matter. She knows a little bit about what that’s like, has worn the same careless, carefree smirk in front of a succession of caseworkers, foster parents, and nameless, faceless men. But if she hates that mask when she sees it in the mirror then she hates it even more on him.

It’s funny, but of all the people she’s ever wanted to see through it, nobody really did, until him. Turnabout is fair play.

Emma lifts her drink to her lips, watching him over the rim of her cup. “You’re my friend,” she says softly, “and I do care. A lot.”

It’s a confession and it isn’t, and she’s not sure who it’s to. Her magic hums softly though, so it isn’t a lie.

Killian looks down at his unturned page, his face pained. “You shouldn’t.”

She puts down her cocoa and fights the sudden urge to squeeze in next to him, to lie her head on his shoulder and breathe him in. She gives herself a mental shake and fixes him with a bright smile.

“You shouldn’t worry so much. You forget, you’re part of team hero now. We’ll be rid of the witch soon enough, in fact, look,” she spins on her seat to face her hot chocolate, wrinkles her nose in concentration, and closes her eyes, “watch this.”

\--


End file.
